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Free Press Staff Writer

David Blittersdorf, president and CEO of Williston-based AllEarth Renewables, stands beside one of his solar trackers Tuesday at the Renewable Energy Vermont conference and expo in South Burlington. / JOEL BANNER BAIRD/FREE PRESS

On the other hand

Not all advocates for renewable energy recommend a full-steam-ahead approach for adoption of existing technologies. Some, like the Washington, D.C.-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, argue that money and effort are better spent in developing clean power that can compete head-to-head with coal, oil and natural gas. In a report released this fall, the foundation writes: “Only when clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels will it be massively deployed globally because countries, companies, and individuals will want to adopt it — not out of civic mindedness, but out of self-interest.” Source: www.itif.org

Francis Tourigny of Montreal-based AESP Green Energy, at right, describes his company's vertical-axis wind turbine/streetlight with University of Vermont students on Tuesday at the Renewable Energy Vermont conference and expo in South Burlington. / JOEL BANNER BAIRD/FREE PRESS

University of Vermont sophomore Adam Sullivan examines the combustion system of an Austrian-made wood-pellet boiler on Tuesday at the at the Renewable Energy Vermont conference and expo in South Burlington. Behind him, Matt Bray of Bethel, Maine-based Cutting Edge Energy, describes efficiency features of the boiler. / JOEL BANNER BAIRD/FREE PRESS

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Can a conference be cosmic?

Most are: They cycle through keynoted coalescence and dissipation with the regularity of (and help from) a coffee urn.

When the attendees orbit around a theme of electro-chemical reactions — as they did last week at the annual Renewable Energy Vermont conference and expo in South Burlington — the current alternated widely.

The REV-fest was part science fair, part civics class, part trade-group show-and-tell. Folks appeared to be energized by catalysts (including caffeine) at every turn.

The buzz: Energy from renewable sources is shifting into a faster gear.

A visitor eavesdropped. But the first bit of dialogue took place entirely in his head:

Q: Might an early deadline light a fire under Vermonters’ quest for cleaner heat, mobility and good, old-fashioned electricity?

A: It depends on the fire.

Q: Meaning?

A: Woodchip and pellet boilers must turn up the heat. Internal combustion engines and fossil-fuel-fired furnaces must throttle back. More of us need to cozy up to super-efficient electric heat pumps in suitably insulated homes and workplaces.

Q: Says who?

A: That’s the consensus opinion of the Renewable Energy Vermont board. It announced that, by the end of the decade (just seven years away), the Green Mountain State must nearly double the contribution of renewable energy (from 11 percent to 20 percent).

Q: Or what?

A: Or the state won’t stand a snowball’s chance of meeting its 2050 goal of 90 percent renewables. So it’s a call for quicker action to cut carbon emissions and curb global warming.

Q: Should we be surprised? I mean, it’s in these folks’ best business interest to flog more of their wares, more quickly.

A: Actually, there were some surprises. Who would have thought that we’d be asked to use more electricity? Or that these people would downsize expectations for the future of industrial-size wind here?

Q: Well ...

A: And who would have thought Vermont would be scolded by someone from Massachusetts about slacking off in the green-energy department?

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Q: Back to the quest to slow global warming: Vermont’s role in that enterprise is what, exactly?

A: According to these people, it’s to lead the way in finding solutions — technological, political, maybe even philosophical.

Q: Entrepreneurial, too, I’ll bet.

A: Yep.

Post-breakfast bar

With considerable effort, organizers prodded a critical mass of people away from vendors’ booths and upstairs into the Sheraton Burlington’s Emerald Ballroom.

“I came to Vermont to talk about renewables, thinking it would be a piece of cake,” said keynote speaker Alan Nogee, a consultant who for two decades charted climate and energy policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Up on the screen flashed a disconcerting map. It seems that, among the Middle Atlantic and New England states, Vermont is one of two (along with Virginia) that still opts for voluntary, rather than mandatory renewable energy goals.

“Now I have a hole in my heart,” Nogee teased.

His advice: Get on the stick, quickly.

Ruffles and ridges

Rogee asked us to consider trends:

• Vermont’s rumpled landscape won’t play host to a boom in large-scale wind projects (it’s much easier and cheaper to line up turbines on the open prairies). Keep a lookout for more “community-scale” projects.

• Solar power, on the other hand, can be expected to grow in concert with improved photovoltaic efficiencies and dropping panel prices

More ladders than snakes define the quest for cleaner energy, Rogee concluded: “Folks, we have turned the corner. We aren’t turning back.”

Charge!

A break ensued. David Blittersdorf, president and CEO of Williston-based AllEarth Renewables, sauntered over to his company’s booth, which was half obscured by a solar tracker.

He repeated what had become a conference mantra: “Electrify.”

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Blitterdorf said the new, suitcase-sized electric heat pumps he has installed at his Charlotte residence are cheap to operate, work like a charm — and are designed to keep on ticking at minus 15 degrees.

Might his enthusiasm for electrons infuse fresh vigor to America’s love affair with the automobile?

Not a chance.

“The electric car is a transient technology,” Blittersdorf said. More forward-looking commuters should bank on the efficiencies of buses (until highways become too expensive to build and maintain) and light (and “medium-speed”) rail.

Earth tones

The more immediate horizon, exhibitors predicted, will include the burning of wood (biomass) for straight-up heat (thermal), for power generation — or for both (“co-generation”).

At a time where the inner workings of so many of our devices take place at the invisible, molecular level, the presence of brown tree remains looked out of place.

But plenty of visitors seemed to find pleasure in handling the various fuels (municipal and yard waste, hardwood pellets, sawdust, sawmill chips, machine-shredded — “hogged” — waste wood), lined up like so many varieties of high-fiber cereals at a motel breakfast bar.

First movement

The DNA-like twist of composite turned slowly, about the speed of an old-school barber’s pole. Its curved surface caught a breeze blown by a grid-connected table fan — which, like most wind turbines, had blades mounted on a horizontal axis, sunflower style.

Francis Tourigny of Montreal-based AESP Green Energy, the turbine’s manufacturer, explained his product to a steady stream of gawkers.

The device is fairly compact (two people, linking hands, could probably circle it), small and light enough to be mounted at the top of a streetlight.

That is by design, Tourigny said: In tandem with a small solar panel, it can “autonomously” power an LED streetlight. A trickle-charged battery, also part of the package, provides up to three days’ backup during calm and/or dark periods)

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That’s the base model. Add-on options, in various combinations, include a Wi-Fi router, cellphone relay, surveillance camera and motion sensor.

The system also can be net-metered, feeding power to the grid when it generates a surplus.

Those decibels

Samuel Shuster, a sophomore mechanical engineering student at University of Vermont, asked a question that has bedeviled plenty of wind-power boosters: What about the noise?

Not much to discuss, Tourigny answered. The slow-moving helix creates little wind shear, which is the source of objectionable noise on whale-sized industrial turbine blades.

There’s a tradeoff, he added: Savonius turbines generate, pound for pound, less power than a horizontal-axis model. But the upright rigs take up less space and require less maintenance.

Tourigny’s partner at the booth, Tom Halnon (doing business as Vermont Green Energy Systems), said these turbines could work wonders in providing uninterrupted cell service on Interstate 89.

“And,” Halnon added, “a line of these on Church Street (in Burlington) would just look wicked cool.”

A-la-naturel?

On the front burner throughout the conference: Electricity is to become our power of choice in the coming decades.

The parallel expansion of natural gas markets in Vermont, through newly proposed pipelines, got less play. Understandably so: Natural gas is a fossil fuel, releases carbon into the atmosphere when it burns, and is not renewable.

Its advocates (including Gov. Peter Shumlin) tout the relatively clean combustion of natural gas, compared with oil — and its usefulness as a transition to more renewables.

Good arguments

During a break-out forum at the conference, Sandra Levine, a Montpelier-based senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, credited natural gas with “playing a huge role in closing down nuclear and coal plants” in the U.S.

But, Levine added, its further growth should be examined closely.

“Exuberance over natural gas is misplaced and dangerous,” she said. “It’s not going to get us where we need to go in the long run.”